President General Pervez Musharraf said here on Wednesday that Pakistan has made remarkable upsurge in economic development over the past few years and to sustain high economic growth the government has greatly enhanced spending on higher education for human resource development.
Addressing the 10th Convocation of the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology here he underscored the need for further cementing the linkages between human resource development and economic progress, and outlined his vision to achieve the desired goals.
"We have to do a lot of work to produce highly qualified manpower and will seek assistance of foreign countries towards this end", he said. The President said: "Pakistan is no more in the economic stagnation of the 1990s and higher education budget, which was Rs 600 million in the past, has now been raised to over 22 billion rupees."
He expressed hope that the Higher Education Commission (HEC) would fulfil its national obligations of improving higher education under the stewardship of Dr Atta-ur-Rehman. Referring to the situation in the region, he said that despite the turbulent events Pakistan would maintain the pace of economic development.
"We are not facing any external threat; the threat is from within the country in the shape of extremism and terrorism," he said, adding that the government was not scared, and would successfully deal with the problem.
He said that Pakistan had attained paramount status among Muslim Ummah and its progress would have direct bearing on the Ummah. The President condemned the elements exploiting religion for their political ends and said that Islam "is not only a religion but a complete code of life". Islam teaches unity and cohesion, and it is progressive and not retrogressive religion, he added.
He said the GDP of the country had risen from Rs 65 billion to 132 billion over the past five years, which needed to be further enhanced. It is comparatively better in the Muslim Ummah, but far below even a small European country with a population of less than 5 million people.
The President cited lack of knowledge-based economy as prime factor for low GDP. The present government, he said, has adopted a holistic approach to meet the challenges and is focusing on promoting literacy rate, primary and secondary education with special reference to engineering sciences. He called for further strengthening the trilateral bond among industries, technical institutes and development research.
Laying stress on promotion of knowledge-based economy, Musharraf said, "We need to enhance productive capacity of the economy by fully utilising the human resources." The Higher Education Commission (HEC) led by Dr Atta-ur-Rehman, is fully alive to its responsibility of meeting the present-day challenges vis-à-vis higher technical education, he said.
The President said that nine world class science and technology universities would be set up in the country, which would become functional by 2008 with the assistance of Italy, South Korea, Japan France, Sweden, Netherlands, Austria and Japan. These would have linkages with local industries, which would help attract sizeable investment.
He told the audience that to improve the technical education system the government had decided to establish high standard national vocational and technical education centres. He said the nation has all capabilities and talent to excel in technical education, and the world community is also aware of this fact.
The President said the government would take care of external debt liability of GIKI for the next four years, and announced Rs 50 million for the Institute. He also announced to double the cash award for gold medallist students.
Congratulating the passing-out graduates for obtaining Bachelors, Masters and Ph D degrees in different disciplines of engineering sciences, the President said the nation "has great expectations from you for the development and prosperity" of the country.
The President conferred degrees on 196 BS graduates, 40 MS graduates and five Ph D scholars. He also awarded gold medals to the outstanding students.
The Rector of the institute, Dr Abdullah Sadiq, in his address, said that the NWFP and Balochistan governments, the Institute's alumni and some of its friends, and more recently the Government of the Punjab, were supporting the studies of deserving students at GIKI.
The Institute has succeeded in its endeavour to impart quality education to the students, he said. "Over the years the Institute has been able to attract from abroad highly qualified professionals, both Pakistani and foreigners. Many of them are now serving in leading positions in the country. Shams-ul-Mulk, Chairman of Board of Governors of GIKI, read out the special message of late President Ghulam Ishaq Khan.
The Ph D degrees were awarded to Sirajul Islam, Asifullah Khan, Abdul Majid, Hassan Fawad Junejo and Muhammad Siddique. Sana Arif and Bilal Riaz bagged the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Medal and the Quaid-i-Azam Medal, respectively, for distinction in academics and overall best performance.
Faculty-based gold medals for BS programme went to Murtaza Shabhir Safri (Computer Science Engineering), Sana Arif (Electronic Engineering), Shakeeb Bin Hassan (Engineering Sciences) Ta1ha Qamar Yazdani (Mechanical Engineering) and Muhammad Salman Saif (Metallurgy and Materials Engineering).
In MS programme, the gold medals were won by Muhammad Umar (Computer Science), Gulzaib Rafiq (Electronic Engineering), Fazal Harj (Engineering Sciences) and Muhammad Bashir (Metallurgy and Materials Engineering).
Earlier, the President inaugurated Hostel No 8 of the Institute. NWFP Governor Ali Muhammad Jan Orakzai and Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani, Chairman, Higher Education Commission, Dr Atta-ur-Rehman, parents of students and various officials attended the Convocation.
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